Conventional polyolefins such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) are extensively used in many applications in our modern life that demands increasingly advanced materials. The main reasons being their outstanding mechanical properties, processability, chemical stability and resistance, combined together with a relatively low price. Polyolefins are particularly well suited for packaging, automotive industry, and building and construction. Apart from the clear advantages of polyolefins, they exhibit certain technical limitations such as their poor compatibility and miscibility with other polymers or fillers.<br/>Recent progress in organometallic catalysis revealed several new routes for polyolefin synthesis and allowed scientists to produce randomly or chain-end functionalized analogs. Another method for preparing functionalized polyolefins (FPO) is the reactive extrusion process, however, due to the free radical process, the thus obtained products are ill-defined. Incorporation of polar functionalities into polyolefins provides an amphiphilic character and expands the scope of applicability of such polymers to areas usually reserved for specialty materials.<br/>Although many studies have been performed on FPO’s, no systematic comparison between in-reactor functionalized (IRF) and obtained by reactive extrusion (REX) FPO’s have been made. In this contribution, we will give an overview of the pros and cons of the production process, material properties, and application areas of IRF versus REX FPO’s.<br/>During the last years, our group has investigated the synthesis and physicochemical properties of functionalized polyolefins. Potential applications of such materials i.e. polymer blends compatibilizers, self-healing & shape-memory materials, reactive bitumen modifiers were also indicated over the conducted studies. Affairs concerning potential catalyst deactivation by functionalized comonomers and other technical issues during in-reactor functionalization were also addressed in our research program.

Synthesis and applications of structurally well-defined functionalized polyolefins

ACS Fall 2021

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